We hope you all had a Merry Christmas! We had a pretty relaxing day; the guys
playing games and Seth building Lego sets. I watched a movie Frank gave me about
Handel’s Messiah which was really cool. I also talked to Mom & Dad. For dinner
we were invited to a friend's house...they also invited the sister missionaries and a couple of other families in our ward so we had quite a big group there and the
conversation was pretty lively and fun. The food was all
really great, too. It seems like lately I can only eat a little bit and then I
feel really full but that is probably not a bad thing. I may make it through
the holiday season without gaining a ton of weight! So anyway, it was a nice
day but the best part was talking to Tanner:
Doesn't he look great?! He could talk for 30-40 minutes and we did talk the full 40 minutes! He seems to be happy and doing well.
The rest of the week was pretty busy, with all the Christmas
preparations. Unfortunately, Frank got sick with whatever I had the week before so he was mostly
down for the weekend. He started feeling better around Tuesday or so. In the
meantime, on Saturday I made buckeye candy and I invited the sister missionaries
over to help with that. They loved doing it and it was really nice for me to
have the help, especially since Frank was sick.
That night we had our ward
Christmas party, and they did something different this year…we didn’t have a
dinner. Instead, we had hot chocolate and dessert and a nice musical program
(Jared was the emcee, and he did a good job). It was fun, and much less
stressful for a lot of people. One member did a slide show / song of
“Bishop Got Run Over by a Reindeer” which was hilarious! The RS president put together a really nice video with different people in the ward
talking about what they love about Christmas, or their favorite Christmas song,
etc. Some of the things the kids said were really funny. Frank was too sick to go
to the party, unfortunately. He was in charge of getting a lot of the paper
products and the hot chocolate, as well as a bunch of donuts, so Jared and I
ended up doing all that. I just can’t seem to get away from being involved in
ward activities! That is the second ward activity we’ve had since I got
released as RS president, and I ended up doing a bunch of things to help with
both of them! Oh well!
On Sunday we had our Christmas program and it was lovely. I
felt the spirit so strongly all day Sunday; it was really sweet. Jared and another YM sang a duet of The First Noel which was really good and Jared and I
sang two songs with the ward choir. All the talks and lessons were really great
too. I really do love our ward. So many great people! They almost feel like family! :)
Frank didn’t use a lot of vacation days this year so he is
taking all his time off now. His last day of work was last Friday (the 18th);
he doesn’t have to go back to work until January 4th. So he was home
this whole week, which was nice. Especially since he wasn’t feeling well, so he
was able to rest a lot. I didn’t rest; I had lots to do! Besides all the usual
chores, I spent a lot of time on Monday wrapping presents. I also did some Cub
Scout planning. That evening I went to a viewing for a lady in our ward who passed
away on Friday the 18th. Unfortunately, I had a conflict so I couldn't go to her funeral on Tuesday. I wanted to make sure the her family knew we were
thinking of them! She has been living with her son and his family for the last several years and they have been taking care of her. I had a nice talk with both the son and his wife, and
they were handling the whole thing really well and had some sweet experiences
with her before she passed away. None of us can really feel anything but happy
for her, since she has been in bad health for a long time. She had diabetes and had to have one of her legs amputated a number of years ago so she's been in a wheelchair ever since. She was a sweet lady and I loved going to visit her. She lived a very full and great life. I can imagine that now she is running around and very happy!
Tuesday I went to the temple, and that was awesome!! It felt
so great to be in the temple right before Christmas. I really felt joy! Tanner's good friend Elisabeth was going to the temple for the first time (she is going on a mission to Sweden Stockholm in January) so I was there to support her. There
were 3 other people receiving their endowments in that session besides
Elisabeth so it was a really full session and kind of crazy but still very
nice. There were a number of people from my ward and stake there so it was
nice to see familiar faces. That evening I went to a Messiah Sing Along at a historic theater in downtown Frederick. A group of us from ward choir went together; I picked up a couple of YSA girls. It was really nice too. The Messiah is just an amazing musical
piece. They had amazing soloists and a small choir sang one of
the choruses, but on the rest of the choruses the audience was invited to sing
along. It was super fun. My only complaint is that they skipped all the
choruses that I just learned this spring (it’s really long, so they couldn’t do
the whole thing…still lasted nearly 2 ½ hours!) so the only chorus I knew
well was the Hallelujah Chorus. I stumbled my way through the rest of them, but
it was still fun. That day was super busy since I also did all the usual
Tuesday chores in between everything else.
Tuesday was the last day of school for Jared and Seth. On
Wednesday Scott flew in, and we all went to pick him up. Of course it has been
nice to have him here! I kept busy all evening making fudge and cookies. Jared
went to YM (they made cookies and took them to some of the less active boys)
and Frank had to run an errand for a client; Scott went with him.
Thursday was really busy too. Everybody helped with chores
like vacuuming, taking out trash, laundry, and grocery shopping in the morning.
I wrapped a few presents in there too. In the afternoon I picked up the sister
missionaries, who were invited over for dinner. They helped me finish
decorating cookies and get our Christmas Eve dinner made, which was a really
big help.
Sister Bartschi chopping walnuts
Sister Sanborn decorated all these cookies!
Now she is making appetizers!
Seth is trying to give "high fives" to Sister Bartschi:
Our menu for Christmas Eve dinner: chicken cordon blue, sour cream potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, and rolls. We had both sparkling cider and egg nog to drink, and for dessert we had lots of choices of candy and cookies, plus these rice crispy treat things called Scotcheroos that Sister Bartschi made. Most of the dinner items needed to be baked and it would have been really nice to have double ovens in this instance!
I decorated this gingerbread boy in honor of Tanner!
While we were waiting for dinner to finish baking, we were watching
How the Grinch Stole Christmas and within a few minutes of each other we
got calls from two families in our ward, both of whom wanted to drop
things off for our neighbor (the one who is investigating the church)
but didn’t know exactly which house was hers. It was funny! We pointed her house
out to them and they put stuff on her doorstep and then waited in the bushes at
the end of the court to make sure she got it. Hopefully she felt really loved. J
We finally had dinner and then we each opened a present. I
got Frederick City ornaments for the sisters and they loved them!!
So many presents under the tree!
It was a Lego set!
Sisters excited to open their presents!
Jared got a nice jacket from Scott.
After
presents, we watched the Joy to the World DVD. It was nice. I took the sisters
home after that and they said they hadn’t been homesick at all so they were
really grateful. After all of that, we got to bed later than we usually do but
it wasn’t too bad. Dad and I woke up first on Christmas—Seth didn’t even wake
up until 8:00! We had to drag Scott out of bed so that we could do presents! You can see he doesn't look too thrilled to be awake;
If you can't read the tag, it says: "To Mom, From The collective testosterone of the Home" Cracked me up! I guess that was Scott's idea.
Scott helping Jared play his new game.
Funny story about the sled. I saw sleds at Costco last week and thought about getting one because our only sled broke last year. I decided to ask Frank about it first. Then a few days later, he and I went to Costco to look for a big container of hot chocolate for the ward party. We didn't find the hot chocolate, but I saw the sleds and remembered we might want to get one. Frank agreed to the idea, so we ended up buying just a sled...nothing else. We were laughing about how it looked like we had rushed over to Costco just to buy a sled, when it was in the 60s outside! One guy right behind us as we were leaving Costco called to us "I like your optimism!!"
Frank successfully put together his 3D elephant puzzle from Mom and Dad this morning. He was putting it together last night and only had a few pieces left when the whole thing fell apart!! He gave up and went to bed but the first thing this morning (even before he ate breakfast) he was at it again and this time he succeeded.
Seth in his new Star Wars pajamas.
Speaking of Star Wars, Frank, Scott, and Jared are at the movie theater watching it now. (I got them tickets for Christmas.) I will see it later--Frank wanted to watch it and make sure we feel okay about Seth seeing it. If he thinks Seth will be okay with it, then he and I will take Seth to see it soon. Seth and I have had a quiet time here at home. He's been having fun building and playing with Legos (he just finished building the Minecraft set Mom & Dad sent him) while I try to get caught up on some things.
It has been warm, foggy, and rainy all week. It's rained pretty much every day:
I mostly like it although I admit that when we were doing all that baking on Thursday it got uncomfortably hot in the house. (Notice in the photos you can see doors open in the background.) We actually gave in Thursday evening and turned on the air conditioning because we were afraid we wouldn't be able to sleep if the house wasn't cooled down a little. Air conditioning on Christmas Eve! Crazy! Today is not quite as warm but it's still fairly mild. Never fear...we are supposed to be getting more normal temperatures starting January 1st. Happy New Year for Frank!
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